Where do those Characters Come From?

Round and Round We Go

Picking up where we left off in the last post, what was it, exactly, that urged me off the sofa and into the writing chair?

As is often the case, the answer to the question is a bit complicated or perhaps multifaceted might be more descriptive. I’ll try to explain. Some of you might remember the cartoon character, Droopy. Those who don’t can easily look it up. Anyway, the animated pooch was famous for his droopy face, which intentionally defied and hid the emotion going on inside the character. I used to be a lot like that. However, most of us reach a point in our lives, typically around the middle-age mark, where we become disillusioned with the way things have turned out. Never being one to under emphasize things, I rode the disappointment wave with a zeal that would have made old Droopy crack a smile. Stephen King summed it up quite well when he wrote: Creative people tend to have creative breakdowns. I believe the phrase showed up in his novel, Duma Key, but I could be wrong about that.

But that’s enough of that. Long story short, Kathi and I lost everything we had and moved back to Tulsa to start over. It’s turned out all right. Rather than give in to self-pity, I directed my frustration and poured my anger into my characters, especially the villains, cathartically cleansing my soul in the process. I know, but I have to get expressive now and then.  The writing has been good for me. Through my characters and the stories they populate I’ve learned a lot about them, and about myself.

I hope my emotionally charged characters and unusual stories have, and will continue to entertain you.

 http://www.amazon.com/Bob-Avey/e/B002BM2VJ8

Writing Fiction

It seems like it’s been forever since I’ve completed an installment of the newsletter. I am still doing a newsletter, aren’t I? The plan was to send them out quarterly… more or less.

In the spirit of Monty Python, here’s something completely different:

Do you feel as if you’re always in a rush lately? I certainly do. Caught up in this last month, I rushed home from work on the 3^rd Tuesday of the month, which, as everyone knows, is the time of month when the now infamous Tulsa NightWriters gather together to socialize and disseminate knowledge. My sweet wife, Kathi, had something going as well so I was alone. I worked briefly on the 4^th Detective Elliot novel, threw some clothes in the washer, loaded the dishwasher, and stuck a frozen pizza – a concoction called Marinara Meatball – in the oven. To this point everything was going smoothly. When the oven timer dinged, I pulled out the pizza, sliced it up, wrapped a couple of pieces in a paper towel, left the rest for Kathi and David, and headed out the door for the meeting. With my stomach screaming for sustenance, I maneuvered the sometimes dangerous streets of Tulsa, grabbing a bite of pizza whenever possible when the unthinkable happened. One of the marinara meatballs – and quite delicious I might add – rolled off the pizza and fell between my legs on the car seat. I know most of you have experienced this. Perhaps not with a marinara meatball, but you get the idea. The more you try to retrieve the fallen object – due to the slant of the car seat and the gravitational pull of the planet – the deeper it slides beneath you. And I was wearing Kaki, colored pants, except for the red stripe.

Is it just me, or does it seem a tad too commercial that the Gambling Hot Line has three sevens in the number?

And now for a word from our sponsor:

I’ve received enough feedback, or even worse the lack thereof – you know the feeling when you hand someone something you’ve worked on and their face loses expression and they just sort of nod but don’t say anything – on Footprints of a Dancer to feel the need to talk about it. Footprints of a Dancer, the 3^rd book in the Detective Elliot series, definitely differs from Twisted and Buried. Fortunately, or not, that was by design. With the book, I wanted to do something I had not done before. The plan was to incorporate my Christian faith and my love for the paranormal while still retaining the flavor of the Elliot books. I don’t think I succeeded in doing that, at least not completely. That is to say it has picked up some great reviews, but it’s gathered some bad ones too. The other books have done this as well but not to the same extent. With Footprints, it seems the reader either loves it – gets it – or they don’t. Once a story takes hold of me, the characters and the situations just sort of pull me along. I would try to further explain, but in the writing business if you have to explain what you’ve written then you have failed to properly communicate your ideas. However, losing faith at this point is not recommended. With the first three books old Elliot has conquered most of the ghosts from his checkered but interesting past, and he promises to be back soon with a completely different and more down to earth – though not completely  – adventurous story.

I'm Almost There

I apologize for the lack of blog posts lately. I knew going in to this blogging thing that I would not be one of those bloggers who post daily, but I had hoped to put something together weekly. However, I’ve been busy, consumed is closer to the truth, with editing my third novel, Footprints of a Dancer, the 3^rd book in the Detective Elliot series. The book should have been published a year ago, but all kinds of things got in the way, not the least of which is my own procrastination. So a few weeks ago, I started an all-out editing blitz, working feverishly to get through the first editing pass.

It seems that, when it comes to writing, writers fall into two categories – those who outline and those who don’t. I fall into the latter bunch, which means my first drafts are… Well let’s just say the prose, the dialogue, the plot, and even the setting wander all over the place while I try to figure out where the story is going. That makes the first rewrite a nightmare, especially when it takes two years – or is that three – of interrupted starts and stops to wade through the first draft. One tends to lose continuity, which can be frustrating when dealing with a dynamic and quite non-linear beast to begin with.

If there is a bright side to my chaotic, though holistic, style of writing, it would be the tendency of my novels to be unpredictable. It’s tough for the reader to guess what’s going to happen next when I have to do the same while writing it.

But I’m almost there. I’m about 80% finished with the first rewrite. The second rewrite always goes much faster. I hope to have the book out within the next few months.

http://www.amazon.com/Twisted-Perception-Detective-Mystery-ebook/dp/B004C43H32/ref=ntt_at_ep_edition_2_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2

http://www.amazon.com/Beneath-Buried-House-Detective-ebook/dp/B003SE7J6I/ref=ntt_at_ep_edition_2_2?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2